totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Beccab]

8 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Very exciting!

Some questions and thoughts come to mind-

-We know Polaris Mission III will be the first crewed Starship mission, so…

-Are there any potential differences between the first iterations of crew Starship for Polaris Mission III, and the crew Starship for dearMoon? If not…

-I wonder how soon dearMoon would then come after Polaris Mission III. Perhaps Polaris may inadvertently allow for a glimpse into a more realistic dearMoon launch date?

I would put Polaris III in 2026/7 personally, and Dearmoon at least a full year after Polaris III whenever it launches

Edited December 9, 2022 by Beccab

[tater]

A human round trip flight from Earth entirely in a Starship is a long way away.

The commercial crew loss of crew requirement for a flight of up to 210 days is 1:270 (with 1:500 on ascent, 1:500 on descent). With no abort system, I'd want to see somewhere between 270 and 500 consecutive, successful flights to be convinced (if it was me going).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I'm wondering if there's a process to psychologically screen these folks.  Like - have they all already passed?  Do they need to undergo some kind of testing / evaluation before there is some final clearance review to allow them to be cargo for the round trip?

While it sounds quite exciting - there are going to be some very, very long hours with nothing to do as they hurtle through space.  Last thing you need is someone having a panic attack and losing their shiz during the flight.

[Beccab]

4 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm wondering if there's a process to psychologically screen these folks.  Like - have they all already passed?  Do they need to undergo some kind of testing / evaluation before there is some final clearance review to allow them to be cargo for the round trip?

While it sounds quite exciting - there are going to be some very, very long hours with nothing to do as they hurtle through space.  Last thing you need is someone having a panic attack and losing their shiz during the flight.

Dennis Tito mentioned doing a psychological evaluation before being allowed to book a seat in a future Starship flight, so I assume that the DearMoon crew either already did it or will do it shortly

[tater]

21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm wondering if there's a process to psychologically screen these folks.  Like - have they all already passed?  Do they need to undergo some kind of testing / evaluation before there is some final clearance review to allow them to be cargo for the round trip?

While it sounds quite exciting - there are going to be some very, very long hours with nothing to do as they hurtle through space.  Last thing you need is someone having a panic attack and losing their shiz during the flight.

Least it's big.

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Least it's big.

Big enough for a brig?

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm wondering if there's a process to psychologically screen these folks.  Like - have they all already passed?  Do they need to undergo some kind of testing / evaluation before there is some final clearance review to allow them to be cargo for the round trip?

While it sounds quite exciting - there are going to be some very, very long hours with nothing to do as they hurtle through space.  Last thing you need is someone having a panic attack and losing their shiz during the flight.

Tim Dodd mentioned in his latest video that there were a number of interviews as the process went on, so certainly some mental screening in there, as well as a medical evaluation. 
 

and now DearMoon’s Twitter account has been suspended… 

[tater]

30 hours:

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by tater

[tater]

live

 

[Beccab]

Second of three consecutive RTLS!

[Beccab]

Successful launch & landing, Hakuto-R and the Lunar Flashlight are now in LEO preparing for the lunar injection

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

A few weeks ago we saw images of scaffolding and missing tiles on SS.  Clearly they were doing some work on the craft and it looked like it would be a while before it was ready to fly. 

We also heard about work being done on the launch table and maybe a to-do with Booster engines. 

Any updates? 

[Beccab]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

A few weeks ago we saw images of scaffolding and missing tiles on SS.  Clearly they were doing some work on the craft and it looked like it would be a while before it was ready to fly. 

We also heard about work being done on the launch table and maybe a to-do with Booster engines. 

Any updates? 

Scaffolding continued to grow for a while up to the now-shut payload bay - thankfully, it has also started to decrease now, so the end may be near

Nothing much on the booster, B7 and B9 are both together in the high bay 2 being finalized - the first for launch, since if it's the one to fly this is probably the last high bay visit, and the latter to begin testing

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Thanks!

 

[Beccab]

 

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, Laikanaut said:

I've been reading some interesting things today about side ventures the head of SpaceX has gotten involved in, which may result in this person losing their position in the company. These predictions suggested that it would probably run better this way, but I think the CEO was heavily involved with the Starship program at least. Do other people think Starship would continue if the current CEO was gone from SpaceX? My understanding is that it's a very profitable company, but the CEO is also head engineer, and could have unique skills that helped create this program at least.

Hopefully this isn't off topic

Starship's development is currently being managed by Shotwell and many others. If Musk was gone tomorrow, it would lose nothing of value

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

33 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Starship's development is currently being managed by Shotwell and many others. If Musk was gone tomorrow, it would lose nothing of value

Disagree.  When he's focused, the SS development went very, very fast.  He's willing to spend his money.  Since getting distracted, SS has slowed down and become much more staid.  Admittedly, perhaps faster than other companies due to institutional culture... but he's a decidedly dynamic feature of SX.

 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, Beccab said:

Starship's development is currently being managed by Shotwell and many others. If Musk was gone tomorrow, it would lose nothing of value

It would lose all his money. SpaceX might be self-sustainable right now, or it might not be. Hard to say from the outside, because it is a privately held company.

[Beccab]

33 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Disagree.  When he's focused, the SS development went very, very fast.  He's willing to spend his money.  Since getting distracted, SS has slowed down and become much more staid.  Admittedly, perhaps faster than other companies due to institutional culture... but he's a decidedly dynamic feature of SX.

 

Hard disagree. It took the starship program a year and a half to pass from tethered Starhopper hops to the first high altitude test, and another half a year for the first completely successful one to occur; in the year and a half since, SpaceX has built two launch towers and a half (see below), two chopstick catching systems, countless Superheavy prototypes, between 1 and 2 flight-capable versions of that same stage depending on B7 (which is the tallest single stage ever built apart from SLS's core stage, and that's only because of the interstage) and has reached and passed a construction rate of 1 raptor 2 a day. If everything goes right, and that's not certain at all, by the time of the second anniversary of SN15's flight it will have attempted an orbital flight. That's as fast, if not faster, than when Musk was leading it

 

8 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It would lose all his money. SpaceX might be self-sustainable right now, or it might not be. Hard to say from the outside, because it is a privately held company.

Even if it was not self sustainable somehow, i have strong doubts that a company that just reached 140 billions of evaluation while not being publicly traded would run into a shortage of money soon

[mikegarrison]

8 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Even if it was not self sustainable somehow, i have strong doubts that a company that just reached 140 billions of evaluation while not being publicly traded would run into a shortage of money soon

Cash flow.

SpaceX is still a pretty small company, as such things go. I doubt they would have had enough money to develop Starship (especially not the way they did) without the really deep pockets of Musk.

[Minmus Taster]

Even if SpaceX magically went bankrupt in the next year the government would just seize they're assets, I never thought I would say this but they would absolutely save Starship now that they actually need it.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

... save Starship now that they actually need it.

But they won't know they need it until it does something.

That's what I was hoping Musk would do this year... but he's gotten distracted

 

[SunlitZelkova]

1 hour ago, Minmus Taster said:

Even if SpaceX magically went bankrupt in the next year the government would just seize they're assets, I never thought I would say this but they would absolutely save Starship now that they actually need it.

I could see Boeing and BO doing a huge PR campaign comparing it to the N1 in an attempt to get Starship discarded in favor of SLS.

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

But they won't know they need it until it does something.

That's what I was hoping Musk would do this year... but he's gotten distracted

 

I am skeptical he has been distracted because there is no direct evidence his “other venture” has had an impact on Starship.

Orbital flight is tough. We would be in this situation even if he hadn’t begun all of those other ventures.

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Keep it on topic, please. 

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

Hard disagree. It took the starship program a year and a half to pass from tethered Starhopper hops to the first high altitude test, and another half a year for the first completely successful one to occur; in the year and a half since, SpaceX has built two launch towers and a half (see below), two chopstick catching systems, countless Superheavy prototypes, between 1 and 2 flight-capable versions of that same stage depending on B7 (which is the tallest single stage ever built apart from SLS's core stage, and that's only because of the interstage) and has reached and passed a construction rate of 1 raptor 2 a day. If everything goes right, and that's not certain at all, by the time of the second anniversary of SN15's flight it will have attempted an orbital flight. That's as fast, if not faster, than when Musk was leading it

Agree, the Twitter stuff is just more newsworthy especially for journalists who write the articles and tend to be Twitter users themselves. 
Does it eat up Musk attention, yes but at this stage I don't think it matter much as the strategic decisions are done and the rest in engineering and construction. 
Also Starship is not interesting for the media unless something get launched or blow up. 
Yes they managed to nail an landing, yes I would repeat that for more data but they might have limits to number of launched but think they have some ballistic flight permits. They might want an second set of chopsticks to test catching the upper stage who is aerodynamic very different from first stage although I would use legs on the first tests and just simulate an catch. 
And they are very obviously not trying to get something into orbit to get investors so much attention to keep more stuff on the ground.